This is it. The big four-part finale that the entire season has been building up to. And it is enormous, easily the length of the rest of the season. This page is one huge spoiler, so if you don't want that, click back now!

In "Dynamics of a Point"...

The Doctor returns the gang to London, November 1895, then takes the TARDIS over to the Cardiff Rift to refuel. And that's the last event ripped directly from Nu Who's Season 3, specifically from "Utopia". Holmes is only getting darker and moodier, and Watson insists that their time in the TARDIS is up. Holmes needs to move on with his life now, needs the stability of being home.

The Doctor reluctantly agrees, heartbroken to have to leave his kids. Naturally, things fall apart completely in his absence. Holmes accepts the case of the Bruce-Partington Plans from his brother but doesn't include Watson in the deal; they proceed to have a tremendous falling-out which results in the Watsons leaving 221B.

Holmes ends up failing his investigation but isn't given time to dwell on it before he's kidnapped byTorchwood agents. And his host is none other than Professor James Moriarty, alive and apparently in his forties. Moriarty explains the incredible circumstances of how he survived Reichenbach and rounds his tale off by declaring that Time is freezing over thanks to Holmes breaking one of his Fixed Points. Enter Colonel Sebastian Moran with a struggling Beth, who'd followed Holmes here and been caught by Moran. Moriarty realizes that, in Frozen Time, Beth is a Temporal Paradox, and he explains that she will have to die to keep Time stable. Beth escapes, but Holmes is subdued by Moriarty. Watson is then brought into the equation, and Moriarty brutally exploits the friendship to force Holmes to capitulate to his will. It's quite simple: Moriarty wants to remake the Great Detective into himself.

On the run from Moran, Beth reaches Mycroft's office to get information on Oberstein, intending to track him down and get the Bruce-Partington Plans back to their rightful place. But once she acquires her data, Moran reappears and shoots Mycroft, Beth narrowly escaping the same fate. She reaches the Irregulas, with whom Sally has been staying, and from there heads off with the current lead Irregular, Will, to find Oberstein and get the papers back. They succeed, but their hard work is all for naught. Time remains frozen, and Sally realizes that the case was never the issue — it was always the friendship between her husband and his best friend.

Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse join the womenfolk and the boys, and the band of misfits grows into a working, fighting family unit. Sally soon learns that she is pregnant, and as the group plans rescues for Holmes and Watson, they also seek out a truly safe place for Sally and the younger boys to stay.

Eventually, the baby is born, a daughter whom Sally names after her best friend: Kathy. The group gears up at last for their double-rescue, which will occur in two different parts of London but must happen at the same time, lest Moriarty find out about the one and make it utterly impossible to reach the other. This means an uphill battle of wills for Beth versus the rest of the "family," who don't at all approve of her plan to slip into Moriarty's main base alone.

Beth eventually wins out, however, and the operations commence. The Irregulars have a simple time of it, having already infiltrated Watson's holding place. Beth, on the other hand, faces some close calls before finally reaching Holmes's room. But something's terribly wrong: if Holmes before was not quite being himself, the man before her is more like James Moriarty than Sherlock Holmes. Holmes takes all her shock and pleas and throws them back in her face, but Beth refuses to leave and tells him that his brother is dead. It's a stunning blow to Holmes, and, in the end, he leaves his room with Beth with the intent of talking their way out of Torchwood. Holmes starts out transparently enough, but Beth finishes for him and Moriarty can't help but be impressedby her audacity and talent. On those merits, he allows them to run on a twenty-four hour head-start.

In "Every Good Fairytale"...

Meanwhile, the Irregulars have rescued Watson, who shares a joyous and tearful reunion with Sally and discovers that he's a father again. After a difficult conversation about Holmes and Beth, Watson realizes that there might still be hope for his friend.

Beth and Holmes set out on a long journey, uncertain of where it will lead them. Crossing the Channel, fortunately, presents little difficulty, thanks to Tom Johnstone, who had also ferried Beth and Will "months" before. Getting through France itself presents greater difficulties, some external and others internal, as the pair battle with each other and their own complicated feelings. Matters come to a head in Switzerland, when a jealous Holmes believes that Beth would rather marry Johnstone than stay with him, and Beth blurts out a pretty near Anguished Declaration of Love. This leads to a First Kiss as Holmes finally understands his own feelings, which then leads toMy Own Private "I Do".

The couple plan to lay low and rest in Switzerland for a bit before moving on, but while Sherlock wants to go to Italy, Beth wants to go home. At last, he grieves for his brother and promises Beth that they will go home. The next morning, however, Moran and Agent Jones from "The Icarus Experiment" finally catch up with them, and Beth is accidentally shot in the ensuing struggle. She dies, Moran commits suicide for his blunder rather than having to face Moriarty's wrath, and Jones drags Holmes with him back across Europe. He enlists the wrong man to carry them across the Channel, however, and is essentially killed by Johnstone, who then takes Sherlock back to London.

In "Together Or Not At All"...

Sherlock is convalescing from a drug-induced illness that nearly killed him when Moriarty shows up at 221B. Watson appears soon afterwards, and the ensuing confrontation ends with Moriarty dead and the estranged friends wounded. Holmes and Watson ask for each other's forgiveness... and and Time starts to thaw. The world is returned to the morning on which their first breakup occurred. Beth enters, resurrected by the repaired timeline, followed closely by Sally with baby Kathy, who still exists as a newborn by virtue of being a Temporal Paradox. Baby Kathy senses the injuries of both men, and it awakes her Time Lord reflexes, her regenerative abilities healing Watson and Holmes completely. (This is the second time in the series that Holmes has been wiped clean of marks via the Time Vortex.) The stunned companions realize that the Bruce-Partington Case must be solved once more from the very beginning, and Holmes and Watson set out to do so, the way they were always meant to.

The TARDIS emerges from the Time Vortex and lands at Niagara Falls, where Tesla and Westinghouse have been returned thanks to the reality reset. Tesla enters and ends up inside a comatose Doctor's mind, where he meets the Doctor's avatar, John Smith and discovers that the Doctor induced the coma himself in one last desperate attempt to avoid suicide, as his failure with his Companions was something that he could not live with. Nikola coaxes him out, and the Doctor takes him and Westinghouse back to London. The Time Lord is overjoyed to see his Companions again, alive and well.

Holmes invites Beth to partake in the investigation, this time trusting her not to create a paradox. But an attempt to have a real first date ends in tears when Sherlock tries to ascertain whether Beth is really ready to sacrifice her own time and her own family to live the rest of her life with him in the past. Beth breaks down, unable to make that kind of decision either way. But when she leaves for Baker Street, she is kidnapped by Torchwood.

Professor Moriarty and Colonel Moran are alive once more, and Moriarty is hellbent on survival, this time with an also-captive Doctor's aid. In order to break Beth, Moriarty gives her visions of potential future children dying inWorld War I. Beth submits to his will in order to prevent that future, and the Doctor agrees to help him in exchange for Beth's safety. Moriarty proceeds to transform himself into a Time Lord, and when Sherlock, Watson, and Nikola arrive, the brand-new Time Lord seems to hold all the cards. ...except for Beth's hands, which are busy freeing herself even as Moran flaunts his possession of her in Sherlock's face. Moriarty's revelation of his new status is the last straw for a half-broken Beth, who could live with a human Moriarty but not a half-immortal one. In an unguarded moment, she incapacitates Moran and uses his revolver to shoot the Professor; Holmes and Watson then shoot Moran as he rises to kill Beth for that. Moriarty attempts and fails to summon up enough regenerative energy, and exchanges a last few, almost-affectionate words with Sherlock before dying.

In the aftermath, there's a lot of damage to Beth's mind, spirit, and body that she and Sherlock have to deal with. Help comes in the form of an extraordinarily determined Doctor. He owes Beth in a very big way, and he's quite aware of it. He develops a plan and outlines it to his Companions: Beth can stay without sacrificing anything, and the Doctor will get her Jack Harkness's Vortex Manipulator so that she can travel between Sherlock's time and her own. The Holmeses accept this proposition, and have an official wedding the next day, with Mycroft Holmes's stunned blessing.

There are a lot of pieces to pick up, but now Holmes, Beth, Watson, and Sally can do it together.

Broken Pedestal: Beth's realization that her hero is not the man she believed he was, starting with handcuffs and spiraling down from there. Even worse is the scene in which she returns to Torchwood to rescue Holmes, only to find him darker and rather like Professor Moriarty.

Darker and Edgier: "The Dying Detective" is definitely the darkest episodes of the season, and the near-rape and death situations are not all that earns it this distinction! The finale, as a whole, is also this to the rest of the season.

Deal with the Devil: Both Holmes and Beth at different times make essentially the same choice, selling themselves out when Moriarty confronts them with unbearable alternatives.

Endless Winter: Or near enough, being late November in the British Isles and in the midst of the Continent.

Everyone Can See It: Holmes is still the only one who can't/won't see Beth's attraction to him or vice versa. Made worse, though, by the fact that, this time around, even the villains can see it!

Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Averted, Defied, and Discussed. This is what makes Moriarty an even more dangerous opponent than he was in the Canon — he goes so far as to mock Holmes for not having studied the affairs of the heart.

Flaw Exploitation: Moriarty is a master at this, exploiting Holmes's obsession with protecting Watson, the Doctor's insecurity at his darker side, Beth's maternal instincts, and the Doctor's need to protect his Companions.

Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Moriarty and Beth enjoy doing this, albeit with very different circumstances. Moriarty is Time Sensitive and knows how the Sherlockian fandom should have progressed; Beth is a Fangirl and thus knows how fans would react to various events.

Ominous Fog: Subverted. Beth once remarks just how useful the constant fog has been for herself and the Irregulars.

Our Vampires Are Different: The plasmavore gets fleshed-out more here by virtue of having more screentime in the finale than in her first, brief TARDISode, and comes off first as being very much a vampire... and then very much not so. She's an alien woman who plays at being The Vamp and does require blood to live as part of her DNA... However, she experiences some definite Character Development.

Holmes and Watson both call Moriarty a bastard, Holmes in his head and Watson to the man's face, as well as saying it again for good measure later on.

See Gosh Dang It to Heck! above. Beth uses G-rated swearing so much that you'd think she'd never say something serious, would you? Well... not if Holmes scares her. See the renamed What the Hell, Hero? in "The Dying Detective".

Ripple Effect-Proof Memory: Basically, anyone who is very connected to the Holmes/Watson/Moriarty conflict retains their memory both into Broken Time and back out of it. Notable characters who don't remember either way are Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft, and Inspector Lestrade.

Self-Inflicted Hell: Invoked several times by Moriarty when speaking with Holmes or Watson, explaining that he would have had gained no serious foothold in Holmes's soul had the pair not damaged their friendship so thoroughly. He also brings up more than once the fact that theybroke Time, putting them all in the Crapsack World.

Stock Monster Symbolism: It's kind of inevitable, and it's deliciously subverted. Rather than having literal monsters serving as metaphors for real life issues, we have realistic humans who closely resemble mythical beings.

Consider Professor Moriarty. He comes off as a classic vampire — the similarities between him and Literature/Dracula are many — in all but being literally undead and bloodsucking. He thrives off of inflicting pain (much as a vampire does from feeding), corrupts Holmes and attempts to corrupt Beth as well (as a vampire can convert others), and displays deadly fury when something goes seriously awry. (And as far as the whole undead thing is concerned, well... he was supposed to be dead long before now... and instead of dying, came back more powerful than ever before.)

Colonel Moran is scarcely less vampiric, also thriving on sadism and clearly fitting the more hedonistic elements in vampire lore. (His blinding lust for Beth is truly disturbing.)

Beth, however, is the real player throughout the first three episodes, though she wouldn't even think of it that way, herself. Nevertheless, she gambits with Sherlock, the entire Time/Space Continuum, and the Big Bad, moving from half-formed plans to well-plotted schemes to going in blind. When something goes wrong, she might blank out for a few minutes but she will adjust accordingly. Better still, her gambits win more than anyone else's...

"This from a grown man who indulges in petulant sulking on a regular basis?"

Master of the Mixed Message: Beth accuses Holmes of this as well, based on the way he treats her compared to his dislike of the thought of her leaving 1895.

Meaningful Name: The title, which is truly a Wholockian title with references to both the Sherlockian Canon and Doctor Who.

Monster Sob Story: Everyone, including the man himself, agrees that Moriarty is a monster: there is absolutely no crime he will not commit. However, much of his current personality is built up of what happened to him after his supposed death — after all, the man has been aging in reverse for two decades by the time the story opens!

Refused by the Call: Poor Beth... twice. First by the Doctor, who says that he's taking her home (after her having been only to the 1980s and then the 1890s), then by Holmes, who doesn't want her to break something in the Time-Space Continuum by tagging along on a recorded case.

These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: Knowledge of the whole of Time and Space? Yeah, that'll go over well... It actually does, if you call a psychopath resisting madness and instead becoming more powerful than ever "going over well".

Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Tom Johnstone may be an amoral smuggler, selling out his own country to Napoleon Bonaparte (and would have no problems in tossing Beth overboard if she objects to that), but, knowing Beth's actual gender, he assures her that she will not be taken advantage of.

Longest Pregnancy Ever: Averted with Sally. Although she is pregnant in Frozen Time, she is a Temporal Paradox within Frozen Time, as is her baby. The two of them and Beth age normally whilst everyone else stays the same.

Which means that all other pregnant women are stuck in whatever stage of pregnancy they were at before Time froze. Fridge Horror, indeed.

"Then what does matter to you? The fact that because you're oh-so-aloof-and-alone, you're not going to be hurt anymore by the people you love? You're not going to see them get hurt or die? [...] Coward."

Red Herring: The Bruce-Partington Plans. The case only hastened along the freezing of Time — what really did it was Holmes and Watson breaking up. Even so, the first part of the episode revolves around resolving this plot point.

Death Is Dramatic: She's shot accidentally in the torso, justifying the trope. It's vital enough to kill her in the absence of any modern aid, but she has to bleed to death first. This allows her just enough time for Sherlock to try to help her, for her to get in a few last words, and for one final, heartbreaking kiss.

May-December Romance: As is the case with the Watsons, there is twenty years between Holmes and Beth — even more egregious in their case, however, as Beth is eighteen. Those twenty-year age gaps sure aren't stopping anybody...

Lighter and Fluffier: After the first three episodes — and, indeed, the first half of this episode itself! — the second half of TONAA presents a dramatic shift in tone! Primarily fluff with good ole hurt/comfort.

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